Springfield Plateau Chapter of the Missouri Master Naturalist™ is a community based natural resource education and volunteer program. Its purpose is to develop a corps of well-informed volunteers to provide education, outreach and service dedicated to the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas within their communities for the State of Missouri.

Saturday, May 20, 2017

Trees on the Move

Not since Shakespeare has there been talk about forests moving until now. I received this Science Alert news article
from Mike Chiles MN, highlighting research showing the "migration" of
tree species over 30 years. The trend is for northern migration of conifer
species and westward movement of deciduous (broad-leaf) species. It
gives a good explanation of the factors of temperature trends and
changing precipitation patterns as well as humans' land use.

One statement in the article puzzled me, that the "young trees were
more likely to have made this migration than the older ones."What was meant by "young trees?" The actual scientific article refers to "saplings" and gives a good explanation.

"It is not surprising that saplings have experienced a higher proportion
and faster rate in poleward and westward shifts than adult trees,
because new recruitments (that is, young trees) are expected to respond
to climate change more quickly (23, 24).
The observed differential shift rates could also be due to the fact
that saplings are more sensitive to droughts in terms of survival than
adult trees (25),
as substantial drought was observed in the southeastern region of the
study area during the study period. The differential shift rates among
subpopulations in the four cardinal quadrants further confirmed that the
observed range shift is primarily due to the changes in the leading
edges of species distribution ranges, which agreed with early findings
by Woodall et al. (23) of significant poleward shifts of seedlings for most of the northern species in the eastern United States."

"You can't teach old dogs new tricks."
It
probably isn't so much a matter of teaching an old tree as it is young
trees having more time to adapt. The younger trees have a longer time
to let natural selection occur.

After the last ice
age, Missouri went through a long period of boreal reforestation before
our oak-hickory forest developed. We don't know the time frame of that
shift but it is likely that humans had some influence with their use of
fire. Now we are at it again.

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About Us

We are a retired physician and nurse, writing to advance the cause of nature through education. We are active in Missouri Master Naturalists as well as a wide variety of like minded Conservation organizations.